Jealousy & Guilt
by everythingisintoxicating
Summary: A prompt of 'Demi cheating on Jennel with Wilmer and Jennel finding out' that I toyed with a bit.


**An anonymous tumblr prompt.**

* * *

The group mentoring session had technically ended an hour ago, yet here they all still sat. Cece was laying on her back on the floor, a pillow propped under her head so that she could still see Jennel and Demi, who were sharing the couch.

"I'm not _that _short!" Demi protested.

"Girl." Cece raised her eyebrows in amusement. "Without heels on, you and Jennel look like a couple of munchkins."

Jennel threw a pillow towards Cece, laughing and mumbling a "shut up."

"I am five _three _for your information." Demi said indignantly, crossing her arms like a little kid and throwing her legs up onto the couch, across Jennel's lap.

"I'm five feet exactly…" Jennel began, giggling.

"It's all about the heels. You gotta work the heels." Demi insisted.

Cece groaned. "I hate heels. Hate them. You know I never really wore them before this show?"

Demi and Jennel both froze, looking at Cece as if she had just suggested they go onstage naked.

Jennel opened her mouth and closed it, trying to wrap her head around what Cece had just said. "You… Never wore heels?"

Cece shook her head.

Demi's incredulous voice came next. "Cece Frey. Fierce Cece Frey who showed up with leopard print painted on her face and strutted all over the damn stage."

Cece shrugged. "I mean, I had worn them once or twice, but…"

Jennel just kept shaking her head in disbelief. "But heels are… _magical. _"

"I apparently missed out on a lot of stuff…" Cece cringed as she waited for the reaction of her next admission. "…like I've never been to Wal-Mart."

Demi's face was flat, blank in shock. "This is ridiculous."

Jennel spoke, lifting her face from where it was hidden in her hands. "It's like you're not _human_."

"Okay, you know what?" Cece said, laughing and raising her right hand. "Lets just do this, and see if I'm as ridiculous as you think."

Demi and Jennel looked at Cece like she was insane for the third time in only a few minutes.

"Never Have I Ever. Don't act like you don't know how to play." Cece insisted.

_Oh. _Demi raised her right hand, five fingers extended, and Jennel followed suit.

"Never Have I Ever always turns into a sex thing though." Jennel complained.

Cece smiled. "Fine, make it a sex thing. I'm just determined to prove to you that I'm crazier than you think."

Demi lay her head back on the armrest of the couch, staring at the ceiling as she held her hand up high. "I'm gonna lose first, I always do."

Jennel began. "Never have I ever… Kissed a girl."

Cece and Demi both laughed as they folded a finger down.

"Elementary, Jennel. Elementary." Cece teased. Jennel stuck her tongue out.

Demi spoke. "Never have I ever cheated on a boyfriend." There was a beat of silence as all three girls waited for somebody to lower a finger. They continued on unchanged.

Cece's turn. "Never have I ever… Been in love with a girl."

Before there was time for the girls to process or respond to the question, the doorbell to the mansion rang.

Demi dragged herself off of the couch. "Got it."

Jennel had dropped her hand.

"Wait, did you answer?" Cece asked.

_No, because I don't know how to say 'I'm not sure' when you're expecting me to say 'no'._

"Nope," Jennel answered out loud. "We have to wait for Demi to come back."

"Fine." Cece huffed.

The girls made casual conversation about the show, about the mentoring session they'd just had, and about friends who had been sent home. They heard a distant giggle during a pause in conversation, but twelve minutes and four conversation topics later, Demi still hadn't returned.

"I'm gonna go see what's up." Jennel said, pushing up off of the couch.

She padded around a corner, making her way down a short hallway to the front door. Halfway to her destination, she heard a faint gasp. She stopped in her tracks, straining her ears, and heard another short intake of breath.

It almost sounded like…

Then, Demi's voice. "Stop." The word escaped the girl's mouth in a low moan that signified 'stopping' was the last thing she wanted. "Not now…"

Jennel slowly peered around a corner, and what she saw confirmed her earlier suspicions.

Demi was backed up against the front door, an unidentifiable man pressing into her. One of her hands was clutching at the back of his jacket, and his own hands were on either side of Demi's waist.

The noises she was making were the result of his lips on her neck, and her free hand cupped the back of his head as she turned her face, eyes closed, so that he had better access to her throat.

Jennel's feet were stuck to the floor, standing in the middle of the hallway, just watching. She felt her throat constrict, and her vision lost focus. Anger choked her up, and she could feel the tell-tale sting of tears behind her eyes.

Demi turned her head just a bit more, breathing harshly as this man, as _he, _sucked hard on her neck. Jennel could feel bile rising in her throat as his hand drifted up towards Demi's breasts, palming and massaging.  
Demi's face contorted in pleasure just before she opened glazed-over looking eyes, and suddenly her gaze focused, and locked with Jennel's.

Jennel was standing still, stiff, hands at her sides. Demi's eyes opened a bit wider than was normal as she began pushing the guy away from her. Her sudden shoving caught him off guard, but he relented and stepped back, a question on his lips.

He turned, following Demi's line of sight to Jennel, and Jennel's eyes flicked to him for a- oh. Wilmer.

Still, nobody had spoken a word.  
A strange sense of guilt washed over Demi, which she chalked up to her embarrassment by public displays of affection. She just felt weird because they had been caught making out in the middle of the mansion, right?

Jennel's eyes were still on Demi's, but while Demi's gaze was apologetic and almost ashamed, Jennel's was hard.

"Sorry." Jennel deadpanned, turning on her heel and leaving Demi frozen in place.

Jennel stalked into the room they'd been lounging in. "What's up?" Cece asked casually, still laying on her back.

"I'm going to bed." Jennel said tersely.

"Whoa, wait. What happened?" Cece turned serious and sat up quickly, studying Jennel's face.

Jennel heard Demi calling her name from a room away, and opted not to answer Cece, instead rushing up the stairs toward her room.

Cece jumped up, following her. "No no no, wait. What did I just miss?" She asked, catching Jennel's arm at the top of the stairs. She grabbed both of Jennel's arms, turning her around and blocking her path up the stairs.

"Wilmer's here." Jennel said, voice cold.

"Oh." She knew how much Jennel disliked Wilmer, but Cece herself was on okay terms with him. She cringed as she realized that she should probably go greet him. "I guess I should say hi."

"Yeah, if you can catch him when his tongue isn't down Demi's throat." Jennel spat, turning back down the stairs and marching towards the kitchen.

Cece sighed, confused by Jennel's outbursts. She was clearly missing something.

Jennel pushed through the swinging door to the kitchen and collapsed into a chair, folding her arms on the table in front of her and burying her head in them.

_Why _was he here? She didn't really have a reason to hate Wilmer. He had been at a mentoring session a week or so earlier, and had been nothing but polite. Paige had loved him, Cece loved him, and Demi was disgustingly enamored with him.

Something about Wilmer just didn't feel right to Jennel, and watching him devour Demi's neck up against a wall sparked a fury in her that she didn't know she possessed.  
He just… He didn't deserve somebody as wonderful as Demi.

Suddenly, she realized how ridiculous she was being. Demi could take care of herself, could make decisions on her own. And why should that bother Jennel?

Jealousy? The idea of it made Jennel sit upright in surprise and confusion.  
Jealous… Because Wilmer got to spend a lot of time with Demi, right?  
Jealous because she wanted Demi to like her, she wanted to feel accepted, and Wilmer was already in.  
That made sense, didn't it?

Then the image of Wilmer's tongue on Demi's throat flashed through Jennel's mind like a bad nightmare and she was angry all over again.

Taking a moment to organize her thoughts, Jennel started trying to think clearly again. Why had the little tryst she'd witnessed in the hallway upset her so much?  
She supposed it was simply that she didn't feel comfortable seeing her mentor hooking up with a guy against the front door. But then different thoughts pushed their way to the front of Jennel's mind.

_Did I want that to have been me instead?_

Jennel jumped up from her chair so quickly that her vision blacked out for a moment. She gripped the marbled countertop for support.

Suddenly Jennel was drowned in questioning thoughts; what it was like to feel Demi's lips against her own. How it would sound to make Demi moan with her tongue, how Demi's hands might feel when they were desperately clutching at Jennel.

No. No no no no no.  
Jennel's face burned with a blush so heavy that she felt the rest of her body rise a few degrees as well.

She was just lusting after Demi because she's a gorgeous girl, something like a girlcrush.  
Jennel was positive that it was some strange form of being starstruck- celebrities were sexualized, so they were sexually attractive. It was normal.  
…Right?

Demi slipped into the room while Jennel was still trying to reign in her emotions.

"Hey…." Demi tried to make it casual, but they both knew that she was testing the waters.

Jennel never answered, simply lifted her head from where it was focused on the blank counter to meet Demi's embarrassed look.

"Look, I'm really sorry that you… Stumbled across us." Demi began, her cheeks turning a light pink. "…I sent him home."

Jennel still didn't speak, the memory of the kissing all-too-fresh in her mind. It still made her feel sick.

"It was unprofessional. I didn't even know he was coming, and we were right out in the open, and I just…" She trailed off.

"It's fine." Jennel tried hard to make the words believable, but they came off as clipped.

Demi narrowed her eyes imperceptibly at Jennel. "Are you okay?" She asked, sounding concerned, but a bit defensive.

"Fine." Jennel ground out, refusing to meet Demi's eyes.

Demi stiffened at Jennel's tone, her own voice dropping an octave and taking on an acidity that Jennel didn't know the older girl had.

"What, you're that pissed off because you caught us kissing? You do realize that he's my boyfriend, right?" Demi snapped.

Jennel stayed quiet yet again, her eyes flashing with anger.

"I don't even know why I'm apologizing to you." Demi continued, still upset . "I didn't do anything wrong."

Then something clicked. Jennel felt hurt, Demi felt guilty. Why did this feel like she had just caught Demi cheating on her?

When their eyes met again, nothing but hurt registered in Jennel's eyes, and Demi felt it in her heart.

"Do you love him?" Jennel asked quietly, eyes cast down towards the counter she was leaning into for support.

Demi sighed. She didn't want to do this now. She didn't know why it mattered. Her own eyes dropped to her hands, her fingers fidgeting. "I used to." She admitted.

Jennel sighed too, not acknowledging Demi's response. She began making her way around the counter, towards the door.

"I guess I'm going to bed," she offered, still sounding as defeated as her eyes looked.

Demi stepped towards her, hand catching her wrist. "Wait." She demanded.

Jennel turned back around, eyes full of question and meeting Demi's.

"Are we… Okay?" Demi asked awkwardly, dropping Jennel's wrist. "Honestly I don't even know what was wrong, I still don't, but I don't know why I'm feeling so-"

Then Jennel kissed her.  
She stepped forward, hand sliding down to cup Demi's cheek, and the kiss was featherlight and comfortable and just sweet and warm and _soft. _  
Jennel could pinpoint the exact moment when Demi overcame the initial shock and began to press back into the kiss. One of the older girl's hands came up to slide around the back of Jennel's neck, and then suddenly all contact was lost.

Jennel was being pushed, hard. She opened her eyes to see Demi, looking terrified, putting as much distance between them as possible. Her eyes were huge and confused and her body was stiff.

"Jennel…" She couldn't find the words she wanted, unsure of what she was even trying to say. "What the fuck?" she breathed, not addressing Jennel directly, but sounding surprised rather than angry.

And with that, Jennel spun and ran to her room. She held herself together until she got into her own bed on the top bunk, where she expected to break down into a mess of tears. But none would come. Instead she lay there, staring at the wall and ghosting her fingers across her lips. The enormity of what she had just done hit her like a freight train. A million thoughts ran through her mind- things she might have just changed immensely, sacrificed. X Factor, her own career, Demi's, Fox's reputation, the show's reputation.

"What the _fuck,_ Jennel?" She whispered into the darkness of her room, the newly-developed irony of the phrase not lost on her.

x

Cece tried on four separate occasions to wake Jennel before giving up. If she wanted to sleep all day, she could very well sleep all day. Cece wouldn't stop her.

It was the contestants (and the judges) day off, and a few of the acts were making a trip to the local mall, planning on shopping and generally causing trouble.

As Cece made her way out of the room they shared, she called to Jennel, one last time.  
"We're leaving now, you can meet us there later or something. Just text me," She heard a light groan indicating she'd been heard, and finished with a defeated, "Love you Jennel" before clicking the door shut as she left.

Jennel rolled over onto her back, having been awake the entire time. She had no motivation to get up, no motivation to go out and act like everything was okay.

She pulled her phone out from where it had been charging beneath her pillow.  
The time screamed "12:12" at her, but she was focused on the three small message notifications.  
Unlocking the phone, Jennel's heart clenched.

**(1:04 AM) Demi: We're gonna have to talk about this**

This was from almost three hours after Jennel had kissed her.

**(1:12 AM) Demi: Find me tomorrow. We really need to have this conversation without cameras around**

Jennel's heart was pushing itself further and further into her throat. She had fucked everything up, she'd taken a risk. She hadn't even taken a risk, she'd just acted on some stupid feelings she got over somebody she probably barely knew. And Demi was a celebrity and she was just Jennel Garcia and she never would have had a chance in hell anyway.

She tried to not to let Demi's third message make her feel any better.

**(10:02 AM) Demi: I'm sorry about the way I acted last night. Talk to me, please?**

What Jennel didn't know is that Demi spent the better part of 30 minutes debating whether or not to add a "where? she thought nothing of the fact that she received **I'll be there soon **from Demi just seconds after she sent her first message.

Jennel crawled down from her bunk and looked in the mirror, not bothering to look cute. She'd always had the subconscious want to look attractive whenever she saw Demi, but today she decided that an old New York City sweatshirt and jeans were acceptable. She didn't even bother with makeup, pulling her hair out of the bun she slept in and tousling it lightly before aiming herself towards the stairs.

Demi didn't bother knocking because she didn't want to have to deal with the uncomfortable moment it would surely create when Jennel had to answer the door.  
Her heart was beating faster than could possibly be healthy when she opened the door, and she realized she didn't know where Jennel was. Should she go sit in the common room with the TV and wait for her? Would she have to go up to Jennel's room?  
She opted to go sit in the living room simply because she was too afraid to go searching for Jennel.

She had made her way into the room and was trying to decide which side of the couch to sit on: the one facing the kitchen door (what if Jennel came in through that way?), or the one facing the front door (what are the chances that Jennel went out and was on her way back?).

Demi glanced down at her phone, willing the little green message notification to appear for what felt like the hundredth time, and was disappointed, again.

When she looked up from her phone, Jennel was standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking positively adorable.  
Her hair was the kind of messy that suggested she was perfectly comfortable and she was wearing a worn-looking New York City sweatshirt.  
Jennel was standing still again, with her arms down at her sides and wide eyes, looking a lot like she didn't want to be there.

Demi dropped her purse on the couch she was standing next to and took a step towards Jennel, unconsciously twisting a ring on her right hand.

"Hi…" She said lamely.

Jennel didn't answer, and Demi started getting déjà vu from the night before.  
Demi took the last few steps towards Jennel too quickly and grabbed the other girl by the hand, pulling her towards the couch. "Look, yesterday when you ran into Wilmer and I… I didn't expect for any of that to happen and I didn't want you to see it, and then I felt really guilty that you did and I don't know why."

Jennel pulled her hand out of Demi's, unable to meet the older girl's eyes. "You don't have to feel guilty, you shouldn't. He's your boyfriend and there's no reason you shouldn't be free to do whatever you want with him."

"That's what I'm trying to tell you though. Why would I feel guilty? Why did you kiss me last night?" Demi pressed.

The questions sounded rhetorical but Jennel was ready to answer them. She was done with it all. "I don't know why you felt guilty, I don't know, okay? Maybe you were embarrassed." Her tone of voice was quickly turning frantic. She needed to get away from Demi, from this situation. She couldn't handle it all right now. "And I don't _know _why I kissed you. I didn't even know I was kissing you until I was already kissing you and I didn't even know that I _wanted _to kiss you until I saw you with Wilmer and I just, I…" She grew quiet toward the tail end of her little rant and she was talking with her hands, like she needed something tangible to explain herself. "I'm just… I'm sorry." She finished, voice cracking.

Demi had done well during Jennel's little speech, using almost all of her self-control to fight the urge to just pull Jennel into her and wrap her into a hug. Jennel's eyes wouldn't meet hers, and Demi knew that they were both probably on the edge of tears, and maybe it was for the best.

Then Demi scrapped the internal monologue she'd been practicing since Jennel had fled the kitchen the previous night, and instead daintily pressed up on Jennel's chin, forcing the girl to raise her eyes to meet Demi's.

And then Demi kissed her tentatively. Jennel didn't react to the kiss, keeping a straight face and trying, with much difficulty, to understand what had just happened.

"Yesterday…" Demi began, then started over. "You know I've been with Wilmer for a while. But yesterday you kissed me. And it didn't make any sense and I'm not… I'm not even a lesbian and I don't think I'm bisexual or anything but…" Demi got lost for a second, searching for the right words to explain how she felt. She gave up on trying to find the words, and instead pressed her lips to Jennel's again. "This," Demi continued, her hands making little fluttery motions around the two of them, "feels so much better. Feels so much more _right _than with anyone else."

The light had made it's way back into Jennel's eyes, and she smiled the kind of smile that usually accompanies tears of happiness. She threw both arms around Demi, who was smiling at the look on Jennel's face.

And then Jennel buried her face into Demi's neck, and Demi tightened her arms around the other girl, hands getting lost in impossibly soft waves of chocolate hair.


End file.
